


heaven trembles

by hhellion (LackingStealth)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Rewrite, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Flashbacks, Gen, Grumpy!Wells, I reserve the right to tag spoilers, Language, M/M, Panic Attacks, Slow Build, Slow Burn, adding tags as I go, grounder!clarke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-08 17:05:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4313250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LackingStealth/pseuds/hhellion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rewind the clock.  Unlearn the story you have watched unfold from the very beginning.  Rewind the clock, until—</p>
<p>  <em>“I feel the sun on my face. I see trees all around me, the scent of wild flowers on a breeze.  It’s so beautiful.  In this moment, I’m not stranded in space.”</em></p>
<p>(In this moment, she isn’t.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. -life, again-

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our story begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY SDCC PANEL DAY WHOOP! While we’re all getting excited about season 3, I humbly ask that you turn your gaze back to the beginning. I’ve got another show rewrite/fix-it fic and Grounder!Clarke AU for y’all that nobody asked for, and was really supposed to be heavily Bellarke but is now looking pretty Gen and more friend-shippy than anything else. Oops. (Not to say that we won’t get our Bellarke ending, just that it’s a lot slower of a burn than I’d anticipated before. If you guys trust me, we’ll get there. C;)
> 
> Before we get started, I’ve got to do some super-quick, super important shout-outs. First off, I’d like to thank [therentyoupay](http://therentyoupay.tumblr.com/) for giving me her blessing to adopt the style of her fic [at the center](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1139506) for my purposes here. She’s a fantastic writer and a superb storyteller, and if Jelsa is something you dig then you should be reading this story because holy moly it’ll knock your socks off. And because I’m a super-nerd, one of my favorite things about that fic is how she arranges her text on the screen. She does some really clever things with format, and I wanted to try my hand at her style here, since I think it would translate well to the story I want to tell for you.
> 
> Next, I’d like to send out all my love and affection to Courtney [keywordlydia](http://keywordlydia.tumblr.com/), my champion and my cheerleader and whose support means the world, and to Yuuka [yuuka-rin](http://yuuka-rin.tumblr.com/), my dearest friend and moral support and whose editing is wonderfully ruthless.
> 
> All my thanks and love go out to my betas Mal [hypatheticallyspeaking](http://hypatheticallyspeaking.tumblr.com/), Storm [sheynondoah](http://sheynondoah.tumblr.com/), and Lore [griifinclarke](http://clarke.lovely.ga/) for looking this over and giving me the enthusiastic feedback that I needed to hear to get this out in the world, and to Allison [allisonforevermore](http://allisonforevermore.tumblr.com/) for making this beautiful and being absolutely unapologetic in her destruction of my run-on sentences.
> 
> I couldn’t have done this without the support and encouragement from these lovely people. Y’all are rockstars. ;)
> 
> _There are no warnings for this chapter_

<< [ —— ] >>

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—> _preface._ <—

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Unwind the clock.

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Return the bullets to their chambers.  
Send the spears arcing back through the air, return them to the cradles of shoulders and fists.  
Implode explosions back into the bombs from which they came.

Let the blood pump back into the bodies that lost it.  
Let tears fall up cheeks.  
Let oxygen diffuse back into lungs into blood, let starving bodies fill out and become nourished again.  
Let bones unbreak, let scars unstitch themselves, let bruises fade out of existence.  
Let dirt fall from under fingernails, let it slough from hands and feet.

Unforge the bonds of battle,  
mend the friendships torn in two,  
knit the broken families back together.

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Lift the weight of a hundred lives off the only two people who are  
stupid and brave and selfless enough  
to think they can bear the weight on their own.

Wrangle one hundred child criminals  
back into the rustbucket of a spaceship that fell out of the sky,  
launch them back into space,  
send them back to prison.

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Repressurize the airlocks,  
undrag the beloved in from the cold, dark vacuum of space,  
unreveal an illegal sister hidden under the floorboards,  
undiscover the failure in the systems keeping an even bigger rustbucket of a space station  
habitable for a people of refugees who have forgotten the taste of freedom.

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Rewind the clock.  
Unlearn the story you have watched unfold from the very beginning.

Rewind the clock, until—

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 _“I feel the sun on my face._  
I see trees all around me,  
the scent of wild flowers on a breeze.

_It’s so  
beautiful._

_In this moment,  
I’m not stranded in space.”_

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(In this moment,

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she isn’t.)

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This is not the story you know.

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[>> — /// —— | | — | | —— \\\\\ — <<] 

_h e a v e n   t r e m b l e s_

[ >> — /// —— | | — | | —— \\\\\ — <<] 

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—> _life, again._ <—

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Our story begins with a gun, bullets carefully conserved, pressing hard into the back of a head, with trembling hands and a shard of a plea too jagged to be anything other than desperate. Except it doesn’t begin here, not really. The story begins with triplet flares streaking across the sky and returning to earth, landing lightly but leaving the forest blazing and thirsty for blood.

No, wait, further back—

It begins with careful, trembling hands pressing torn fabric onto a bleeding wound, with shuddering prayers ripped from delirious lungs and tears streaking rivers down cheeks.

No, even further—

It begins with a knife, a long-forgotten lullaby, and “May we meet again.” But that isn’t right, either.

It begins with a fallen star, a bright point of light shot down from the afternoon sky, with the earth trembling upon impact and the forest shuddering at this violent disturbance.

(It begins with a fallen star,  
with a battle and an invasion,  
with a rescue,  
with a survivor.)

Before even that, our story begins with an oasis wrapped in metal and hovering on the edge of space, an unintended sanctuary from cataclysm, with the ship that was not meant to last the centuries alone in the sky, held together with little more than prayers and duct tape.

Our story begins with Jake Griffin discovering the failure in the life support systems aboard the Ark.

Or, no—

Our story does begin  
with a gun,  
with the cool metal of the barrel  
digging into the back of a head of dirty, blonde curls,  
with a threat spat out  
between gritted teeth,  
with an ultimatum,  
and a lie.

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(After all, history does nothing but repeat itself, if you watch closely enough.)

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This is not the beginning of the story.

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(But it’s not the end, either.)

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[[ _tbc._ ]]

<< [ —— ] >>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line about history repeating itself is a shameless bastardization of Chuck Palahniuk from his novel _Survivor_. The original line is, “If you watch close enough, history does nothing but repeat itself.” I’m familiar with neither the book nor the author, I just liked the line. (Come at me, all ye haters.)
> 
> Oh, and all titles are taken in some form or another from Florence + the Machine lyrics. I wanted to stick to one album ( _Ceremonials_ ), but _How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful_ blew my socks away, and I figured what the hell, let’s just use it all.
> 
> _Posted 7/10/15_


	2. -history keeps pulling-

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an army marches through the forest, and a star falls from the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been sitting on this for so long, but holy shit I am so excited, you have no idea.
> 
> Also shout out to [notmylady](http://notmylady.tumblr.com/). Great minds, amirite?
> 
> _There are no warnings for this chapter_

<< [ —— ] >>

—> history keeps pulling. <—

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Amidst the tangle of trees, an army marches through the mud.

Warriors and scouts and healers weave their way through the trees, some on foot, some astride horses, all weary from the travel and desperate to return home to their families just as surely as they are relieved to finally be free of the politicks of their capitol. In the west, clouds are building large and low above the mountains, and though the rain will not be heavy, it will delay their march.

(They would all rather carry on.)

The captain of the squadron, a striking, feral woman atop a gargantuan horse, nods to her second, and they come to a stop. The second makes the call, and the army grinds to a halt.

The captain, Anya, is tall, dark, and utterly ferocious, known for her short temper and her iron fist as much as her loyalty and her cool head in the heat of battle. The second, however, is softer, lighter, quicker to smile. Blonde-haired and blue-eyed, she is no less stunning, no less captivating on the battlefield. Though she is barely of age, she commands the squadron with the same resolve and wisdom as her captain, having fought tooth and nail for the right to stand at Anya’s side.

The second slides down from her horse now and makes her way through the clusters of resting warriors to the healer’s cart. Three men were injured in “training accidents” in the capitol, and she has taken it upon herself to see to their recovery while on the road. One had taken an arrow to the shoulder, another had half a dozen bruised ribs, and the third suffered from a broken ankle and multiple lacerations to the arms.

(The Commander trains her soldiers to be ruthless,  
to see the enemy everywhere.

Even in their own people.)

With her hands busy applying poultice and wrapping clean bandages, the second listens quietly to the grumblings of her patients. They all give her their thanks with nods and hearty claps on her shoulder, but while she works, they give quiet voice to their dissatisfaction.

Ever since her rise to power and the subsequent siege of the Ice Nation, the Commander has been particularly merciless, even as she roped the Ice Nation and the eleven other neighboring clans into an alliance. It is no secret that her ruthlessness stemmed from her lover’s beheading, or that her paranoia was born from the suspicious circumstances of her ascension and her people’s doubts of her legitimacy.

The previous Commander, Zenobia, was as beloved as she was terrible. Ruthless in battle and fiercely protective of her people and their lot, she quickly gained a reputation as a force to be reckoned with. In her tenure, she put a swift end to the border skirmishes with the River Walkers to the south and struck up lasting trade agreements with the Steel-eaters to the northwest. She brought the Nine Villages together under one command in Polis, and after months of tense negotiations, was finally able to work out an agreement with the Sea People of the east to build a port at the mouth of the Potomac. She walked out of the defeat at the Delaware River with her head high, her armies standing, and a military alliance that would prove invaluable in the years to come.

Zenobia led her people well, and though her passing was mourned with all the grief and gravitas it deserved, she was just as celebrated. Zenobia met her end as only a warrior could, alone on the battlefield, facing down her greatest enemies.

Zenobia’s death was a noble one.

But in its wake, her people were left hungry—  
for revenge—  
for justice—

for _blood_.

(Blood, after all, must have blood.

_Jus drein, jus daun._ )

As successor, Lexa’s first act as Commander was to slit the throat of the Ice Princess, who had slain Zenobia in battle. Ever since, her reign has been…

_disconcerting_.

Lexa rules from her chambers in Polis, preferring to send out envoys and ambassadors on diplomatic excursions instead of attending the meetings herself. She only ever speaks through her advisors and hasn’t been seen in public in years. Her informants are everywhere, and it has not escaped her attention that there are those who would doubt her legitimacy as Zenobia’s successor.

In the capitol, at least, dissent is extinguished as quickly as it is sparked. Lexa tolerates nothing less than absolute loyalty.

(In the woods,  
fire does not die so easily.)

“I didn’t expect to see her lieutenant again,” says Ezra, shifting against a log as the healer finishes tying her bandages around his ankle. “Not after the riots in Ravenstown. I thought she’d drop him like she did all the others.” It was the lieutenant, Gustus, who took him down in the training ring.

Pedro gives a solemn nod and slides his sword from the scabbard at his hip, catching the whetstone when Ezra throws it to him. He’s careful not to stretch his shoulder too far as he works on sharpening the blade, and in the lull of conversation, he muses, “Suppose she’s not actually dropping them off in the Dead Zone. We’re supposed to believe that her past four lieutenants have been traitors and spies, but what if she’s using them for something else?”

Manish snorts, taking a bite out of his apple. He catches the healer’s eyes and rolls his skyward, even as he says to Pedro, “You’d believe my dog had an ulterior motive if she looked at you the wrong way.”

“She _does_ look at me the wrong way!”

But Pedro’s protests are drowned out by the chuckles of the other three. When they quiet down, he nods at the healer. “You and Anya were tied up in meetings for days, Kleia, what do you make of our illustrious _head_ ’s council?”

Kleia bites her lip and rises out of her crouch, satisfied with the wrapping of Ezra’s ankle. She tilts her gaze to the rustling trees above. The wind is picking up now; the storm will catch them soon enough.

“I think she chose her council well,” she says at length, frowning up at the shafts of sunlight still streaming through the leaves. “There was not a man or woman in that room who wouldn’t die for her. She is paranoid, I’ll give you that”—Pedro gives a sharp laugh in triumph—“ _but_ ,” Kleia continues pointedly, shooting him a shrewd look, “she has good reason. Half of our people think she arranged for Zenobia’s death after she was named as successor. There are villages that have been demanding for years that the priestesses hold another calling. And she’s already—this isn’t the first time she’s had to fight for her position. She’s dealt with usurpers before. So her council must be loyal, and they are. And those who don’t make the cut, well…” she shrugs, “they know too much.”

One of this army’s greatest strengths is its diversity in soldiers. The linchpin in Zenobia’s plan for bringing the Nine Villages together relied on integrating the nine separate companies of warriors. Where young warriors once served to protect the same villages in which they were born and raised and trained, now they congregate in Polis to finish their schooling and receive more advanced and specialized instruction from the old masters there. In the capitol, the trainees are shuffled and sorted into nine new squadrons made up of young men and women from each village, and at the completion of their training, they are sent to their assigned village to serve under their new captain. The exception to this rule is the seconds of said captains, who are better served finishing up their training with their captain in their home village.

As immigrants to Anya’s village, what these men don’t know—what few even remember, anymore—is that, so long ago, Lexa grew up in TonDC. She lost her parents young, was raised by the village, and was taken under Anya’s wing. Before she was called to command her people, Lexa served as Anya’s second. When that service came under threat, Lexa ultimately chose to renounce her title and her ties to her village, and traveled to Polis to train for Zenobia’s elite company, the _Jedanai_.

(What these men will never know  
is that Lexa does make time for old friends—  
and old rivals—  
when they’re visiting the capitol,  
or that her company certainly is

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_illustrious_.)

Kleia clears her throat and turns back to the trees. She inhales, breathes in the forest and the flowers and the stench of her people, sweaty and dirty and alive. She exhales.

They will be home soon.

(She will not miss the capitol.)

Quiet falls over the group, interrupted only by the rustling of the leaves and the quiet conversation of the rest of the squadron, scattered about the forest as they are.

The momentary peace is shattered by a piercing whistle.

A scout slides down from a tree, calling frantically for Anya, and Kleia rushes to meet them. The scout, a girl no older than fourteen summers, is wheezing so hard she can barely speak. Her eyes couldn’t possibly get any wider.

Kleia rubs her back soothingly, brushing away the strands of hair that had fallen out of the girl’s plait. “Mali, Mali, what’s wrong?”

Breathless, Mali stumbles over her words, slurring them together in a way that Kleia cannot understand but Anya is able to make sense of. Catching sight of her second’s confusion, Anya prompts Mali to repeat herself, but “ _isa isa_ , slowly.”

“A star is falling, bright as the sun. It’s heading just west of here—for _Maun-de_.” Mali’s eyes well with tears. Though she was a little girl when it happened, she still remembers the destruction wrought the last time the _Maunon_ launched stars into the sky. “Are they going to burn our home again?” she asks, her voice cracking in her desperation.

“Show me the star,” Anya orders, though not unkindly, and the three women take to the trees.

Once perched in the branches, Mali stretches out a trembling hand, and there it is, glinting orange and silver in the afternoon sun. A fireball crashing through the clouds, headed straight for the Mountain.

Anya thanks Mali with a hand on her shoulder, and asks her to go find Lincoln. The girl slips down from the trees with no shortage of relief.

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When they’re alone, Anya turns to her second.  
“Clarke,” she says.

Her lungs frozen over, her throat like the desert,  
the second watches the star fall through the sky.

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She thinks, _why?_

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She thinks, _what took you so long?_

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She says,  
“That is not a star.”

“No,”  
Anya agrees.

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“It’s not.”

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[[ _tbc._ ]]

<< [ —— ] >>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note about army ranks:
> 
> Technically, “Commander” is a naval rank, and it’s in the middle, above Lieutenants and below Captains and Admirals. However, if we take the Commander rank of the Trigedakru army to be a shortening of “Commander-in-Chief”, then it’s all well and good that Anya is a Captain of her squadron.
> 
> (Also, Anya’s second is pretty damn familiar, isn’t she?  
> There is a reason why she’s not going by the name we’re familiar with, just as there is a reason this particular name is the one she uses. We’ll be unraveling those secrets soon enough, but for now, I’m holding everything close to my vest. Though you’re more than welcome to speculate in the meantime. ;P)
> 
> The next chapter should be up some time later tonight. :)))
> 
> _Posted 7/10/15_


	3. -an atmosphere around me-

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the 100 is now the 99, and Wells Jaha has a lot to be angry about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you see any dialogue that’s reminiscent of actual dialogue from the show, note that the similarities are as intentional as the differences.
> 
> _Warnings for language in this chapter_

<< [ —— ] >>

—> _an atmosphere around me._ <—

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A few dozen kilometers in the air, the star that is not a star hurtles towards the ground. It is, in fact, a spaceship, and inside, ninety-nine bodies are waking from sleep, ninety-nine heads are snapping up to inspect their surroundings, to take in their fellow inmates strapped in around them.

Wells Jaha wakes, and the first thing he hears is, “Oh, _great_ , the fucking Chancellor’s kid.”

Some other kid calls out, “Narc!” And that sets off the rest, all shouting colorfully obscene things about Wells and his father and their general lack of character, morality, and hygiene.

The ship jolts when they hit the atmosphere, and then his father’s face flashes up on the video screens. The Chancellor starts talking about how they’ve been given a second chance, these 99 child criminals, how they’re only free because they’re expendable.

Somebody calls out, “You’re dad’s a dick, Wells.” And, yeah. He is.

Clenching his hands around the safety belts keeping him strapped in place, Wells closes his eyes and pretends he doesn’t care. He’s gotten pretty good at it by now; he’s had enough practice. And since he’s lying to himself, he might as well pretend he isn’t nauseous. But that’s a hell of a lot harder, what with how hard the dropship is shaking from the force of reentry. The first thing he’ll do when they land will be to find a nice, radioactive bush and introduce it to the contents of his stomach, and then he’ll probably have to deal with the rest of these kids calling him The Prince of Puke on top of everything else.

“So what does the Chancellor’s son have to do to get locked up in solitary?”

The brunette strapped in to his left is smirking at him when his eyes blink open, and he tells her, without preamble, “Treason.”

That wipes the smirk off her face pretty damn fast, which was his intention.

(In the background, his father is talking about pardons, and clean slates, but it’s all bullshit. Nearly every single one of these kids is either Mecha or Factory or Hydra, meaning the Council is never on their side. If they do survive the landing, and whatever comes after—if they make it to this Mount Weather place and its stores of century-old food, as his father is advising them to—then each of these kids is going to end up exactly where they came from.)

But then the brunette laughs, weakly and uneasily—as if he’d made a joke in poor taste, _as if it was a joke at all_ —and clears her throat with a sharp shake of her head. “What,” she says, elbowing him in the arm, having to practically shout over the rattling of the ship as they pick up speed, “you try to bring the Ark down, or something?”

She looks so skeptical, so derisive, that when Wells bites out, “Something like that,” he’s not sure if he wishes it were more or less the truth. Either way, she looks vaguely horrified, and snaps her mouth shut.

Wells doesn’t know what it is about him that gives off the impression that he wants to have this conversation, let alone with a delinquent girl who was probably locked up for lifting one too many bottles of pain killers from the commissary. He does not want to talk to this girl about his eleven months in solitary confinement.

(342 days and nine hours  
with hardly more human interaction than a guard  
pushing a tray of food through the slot in his door  
three times a day.  
A guard that usually insulted him,  
usually cussed out his father.  
And who wouldn’t be that bitter,  
when half the Ark was starving from the ration point reductions  
and his father had instituted an infraction quota for the guards  
that got someone floated every four weeks.)

He doesn’t want to talk to this girl _at all_. He doesn’t want to talk to anybody.

He hasn’t wanted to talk to anybody in a long, long time.

(He tries not to remember a sun-bright smile and small hands curling tight around his.  
Tries not to remember, “I wanna talk to you ‘cause you’re not gonna pretend to be  
nice to me, ‘cause you look like you’re good at keeping secrets.”  
Tries not to remember, “You have your mom’s eyes, you know. They’re kind eyes.”

Tries to bury deep, deep down a small, shaky, “I love you, Wells.”

He’s doesn’t have much success.)

All around the dropship, kids are chattering excitedly over his father’s voice on the video feed. They have no idea what’s going on, know nothing of what they’ll be facing on the ground. They think that because they’re out of the Skybox, they’re out of the woods.

They have no idea.

A body rises up from the floor below, a floppy-haired guy who flashes what is probably supposed to be a charming smirk at the brunette. She grins and tilts up her chin, “Spacewalker.”

Oh, yeah—there is _some_ gossip that makes it to solitary. A seventeen-year-old kid wasting a month’s supply of oxygen—oxygen that they don’t have to spare—on an illegal spacewalk is one of them.

“Finn Collins.” Wells doesn’t even try to sound anything less than disgusted. Because this fucker just _had_ to go for a joyride, there are a few hundred kids on the Ark who will be experiencing oxygen deprivation, if they aren’t already now.

“Wells Jaha,” the spacewalker grins wide and crosses his arms over his chest like he’s the coolest bastard in the goddamn ship, “looks like your dad floated me after all.”

He’s floated all of them.

“If you want to survive the landing, you should strap in before the parachutes deploy,” Wells says instead, and that gets the brunette shooting him a worried glance. Across the ship, two other boys are unbuckling their seatbelts. “Hey,” he shouts at them, and _why is everybody so fucking stupid?_ “Get back in your seats if you don’t want to _die_.”

They don’t, and neither does Finn, so when the parachutes deploy in the span of the next second, they’re smacking the floor and the walls of the ship with enough force to snap their necks. Finn lands at Wells’ feet, and he lets out a groan. He’s alive, at least, but the other two are quiet. A girl is yelling at one of them to talk to her, her voice cracking around his name over and over, but she’s not going to get anything out of him, not anymore.

They haven’t even reached the ground, and they already have bodies to bury.

(At least they can be buried, now.  
All in all, it’s a pretty shitty consolation prize,  
for being expendable guinea pigs.)

Some wiring short-circuits in the turbulence, sending a shower of sparks down inside the cabin as the video feed cuts out. A couple kids squeal.

“The retrorockets haven’t fired yet,” Wells mumbles to himself.

The brunette turns to him with wide, panicked eyes. “What was that?”

He repeats himself, loud to cut over the clatter of the ship, and she throws her head back against her headrest with a grimace. “ _Shit_.”

“Yeah.”

And it’s stupid, really; he owes her nothing. But her eyes fill with tears and she just looks so heartbroken, so devastated, that Wells adds, “Everything on this ship is over a hundred years old. They’ll kick in, just give them a minute.”

But smoke has started to fill the cabin. It’s not looking good, and she knows it.

The ship gives a violent jerk, and she latches onto his forearm in a surprisingly strong grip.

“I never got to apologize to my brother,” she says miserably, and Wells has a second to think, _Oh,_ that’s _who she is_ , before the rockets fire and their momentum is arrested.

They don’t stop—they’re not on the ground yet—but retrorockets cut their acceleration, enough that everyone lifts out of their seats a little. The vibration of the thrusters through the metal is noticeable even under the shuddering of the ship itself, and the lights are flickering now, too. By the time they reach the ground, everything’s going to be fried.

The ship gives one final, tremendous crash, jerking them all in their seats, and then—

silence.

“ _Fuck_ ,” says Octavia Blake, because if there was any gossip to be spread through the Skybox, it was dirt on the first illegal sibling in lockup in over a decade.

(The open vents in his cell had to have been good for something.)

“Hey, no machine hum,” one kid observes, something like reverence in his voice. Octavia is looking at Wells with wide eyes when the moment shatters. Everybody starts unbuckling and scrambling from their seats, and then it’s a mad dash for the ladder and the outer door and the _ground_. Wells sidesteps all the kids headed out and crouches next to the closest of the boys who had unbuckled during their descent. Wells feels around for a pulse under his jaw.

Nothing.

Finn’s crouched beside the other boy, his face drawn. Wells asks if the kid is breathing and he isn’t surprised when Finn shakes his head.

Neither of them notice Octavia lingering at the top of the ladder, until a booming voice calls from below, “Alright, everybody, _back the fuck up!_ ”

Octavia’s breath stutters, she chokes out a name—“ _Bellamy_ ”—and then she’s sliding down the ladder like a bat outta hell.

On the first level of the dropship, the kids are swarming for the door. Some are complaining about the guy in a guard uniform holding everyone back from the lever, but most are chattering excitedly. _The ground—holy_ shit _, we’re actually on the ground!_

Wells makes it to the bottom of the ladder in time to see Octavia run into the guy’s arms. The others aren’t quiet about pointing out Octavia Blake, making sure everybody knows she was the girl who almost broke the record for how long she was hidden under the floors, and Wells takes the liberty of elbowing the closest asshole in the ribs.

“Watch it, Jaha,” the guy growls, and Wells gives him the two-finger salute with a shit-eating grin. 

At the door, the elder Blake—Bellamy, evidently—holds his sister at arm’s length. “Look at you,” he’s saying, all misty-eyed, his expression approaching disgustingly fond. His wrist is noticeably bare of the wristband that all the prisoners were given before being loaded onto the dropship.

They do look alike—sort of. His features are softer, rounder; she’s paler and green-eyed. But they both have the same thick, dark hair, and they smile the same way—helplessly, like it’s inevitable.

The Blakes continue to talk in low voices. Octavia practically radiates confusion and annoyance when she plucks at the shoulder pad of the uniform her brother is wearing, only to have her hands batted away.

A voice rises out of the crowd, “Hey, down in front! Move your asses out of the way.”

“Open the goddamn door!” cries another.

“Go float yourself,” Octavia snarls. Bellamy has his arm out in front of her before she can lunge, but that doesn’t stop her from glaring daggers at the crowd at large.

Bellamy squeezes her shoulder, and steps over to the wall to yank the lever down.

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With a blast of steam, the door yawns open. Sunlight glows down on a hundred wondrous faces, and fresh air fills a hundred pairs of lungs. The forest is greener than they ever could have imagined, the sky bluer than blue.

This is the ground,  
and _this_ ,  
this is the rest of their lives.

Octavia takes one step down the ramp, then another, and another. Her fourth step lands in the dirt.

Ninety-nine people hold their breath.

Octavia throws her head back to catch the sun, and sighs. Then she’s pumping both fists into the air, and in a victory cry, she yells, “WE’RE _BACK_ , BITCHES!”

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[[ _tbc._ ]]

<< [ —— ] >>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I definitely didn’t start out with the intention of writing Wells/Octavia friendship, but now that it’s happened, I kind of like it.
> 
> The third chapter will be up sometime during the beginning of next week, either Tuesday or Wednesday. I’ve got one more chapter already written after that, but it’s short and I want to post it with the fifth one, so we’ll see how long it takes for me to kick my ass into gear and keep moving the plot forward.
> 
> _Posted 7/10/15_


	4. -the monument of a memory-

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the scouts reach the fallen star, and old demons do not rest so easily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I accidentally ended up holding this chapter hostage, as some sort of backwards motivation to get myself to finish chapter 5 (which is sort of a monster, and kind of awesome). It wasn’t even good motivation, since chapter 5 still isn’t done, though it’s getting there. But I’ve dawdled long enough, kept you waiting long enough, and so here’s chapter three.
> 
>  
> 
> _Warnings for panic attacks* at the end of the chapter_

<< [ —— ] >>

—> _the monument of a memory._ <—

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Anya’s orders are clear:

“You are to observe the star _only_. You are not to interact with it or interfere with it. You will stay with it until you are relieved. Is that understood?”

When she receives three curt nods in response, Anya dismisses the scouts: Ness, an experienced tracker, Elias, a skilled marksman, and Lincoln, an unshakeable warrior. It is the latter whom Anya trusts implicitly to lead this mission, not due to any deficiencies in the former two, but for the sheer fact that Lincoln is, above all else, her friend.

The scouting party has hardly taken a dozen steps into the forest when Kleia appears at her side, as stiff and silent as the mountain.

“Go,” Anya says lowly, pushing none-too-gently at Kleia’s shoulder. Once, the force behind the gesture would have been enough to bowl her over, but now she sways with it, turning to face Anya with her expression carefully schooled into indifference.

“But what about the report—”

“I don’t need you to talk to Indra.” Closing her eyes, Anya allows herself a moment to grit her teeth. “She’ll be angry at the news whether you’re there to give it or not. She might as well not despise both of us any more than she already does.” This time when she reaches out, Anya runs her hand down Kleia’s braid, tugging on the end of it until her second’s eyes soften and she smiles, grateful. “ _Go._ ”

Kleia cannot catch up to the scouts fast enough.

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It’s the slowing down that’s the problem.

Kleia runs right into Elias, nearly knocking them both to the ground from the momentum. But Elias is a mammoth of a man, taller than even Lincoln and just as broad, so he merely stumbles forward a couple steps before righting himself and spinning to face Kleia with a booming laugh.

“Slow down there, Firebird! Where’s the battle?” He has her by the shoulders, but his grip is light and his grin is teasing, and Kleia cannot help but smile and shrug in return, even as her heart struggles to slow its frantic beating.

“How could I let you go out on your own? You wouldn’t last the night without me.” Ness chuckles at that and hooks Kleia by the arm to get them moving once more. “Besides,” Kleia leans into Ness’s side and plants a kiss on her cheek, “I’d rather be chasing down a fallen star than facing down Indra when Anya tells her the Commander’s decision.”

Lincoln tosses Kleia her pack, which he’d snagged before they left camp (he had known, as Anya had, that she’d be desperate to tag along). Though his steps are light, his words are somber when he says, “She denied our request for more warriors, then.”

Kleia nods and falls quiet. Ness runs a soothing hand along her shoulder, and they walk.

At length, Kleia says, “She couldn’t spare the men, not with the Ice Nation under threat from the Horsemen. She expects a formal declaration of war soon, and besides, the more men she sends to us, the more at risk of being taken by the Reapers.”

Ness grits her teeth and looks ahead, but she cannot hide the anguish in her voice. “They’ve taken our _children_ , Kleia.” Her brother, a boy barely old enough to swing a sword, was taken from her village near the tail end of winter.

“I know.”

“If we had the extra men, then we could better defend against the Reapers,” Elias adds.

“I _know_.”

Lincoln is quiet, half a dozen paces ahead, but Kleia doesn’t miss the tension in his shoulders, the stiffness in his stride.

“Maybe this star will convince the Commander,” he says to the trees. “If it wakes the _Maunon_ , then she’ll have to face them.”

“Will it?” Ness asks, softly. “Wake the _Maunon_?”

“Let’s hope not,” Elias grumbles. “I have no interest in dying. Besides, not all of us are fireproof.” There is mischief in his eyes when he glances at Kleia, who only tucks herself tighter into Ness’s side.

“Believe me, if I could give you the power, I would.”

“And that would be kind of you, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t make nearly as pretty a firebird as you, Kleia.”

Her mask hangs off the side of her pack, and Kleia pulls it free to fix across her face. “What, like this?”

The mask is a fierce and proud war bird, made of bone and leather and painted with red and silver war paint. From the crown, red and black feathers the length of her forearm radiate into the air, and the beak is lined with wolf teeth caked in dirt and old blood. The mask was a gift from the oldest maskmaker in Polis, and it marks its wearer with honor, as a champion and a war hero.

In battle, it is a target as much as it is a symbol.

Elias pulls his own mask out, a bear painted black as the night with a fur lining that blends in with his thick beard. At his offer, he and Kleia switch masks, and Elias dons her mask and bares his teeth behind the open beak. “What do you think? Should a firebird have a man’s beard?”

Shaking her head, Ness succumbs to her giggles. “You’re more terrifying as a bird than you ever were as a bear.” To Kleia, she kisses the crown of the other girl’s hairline and nips at the bottom of her earlobe with a playful little tug. “You, on the other hand, are just as impressive.”

“And your panther is absolutely menacing,” Kleia replies warmly. Ness’s mask is a brown and grey mountain cat with a bloody snout, and it hangs from her hip within easy reach.

“Your opinion doesn’t count,” Elias protests. “You’re both terrible at playing favorites.”

“That has never been a secret,” Ness argues, and really, it never was. Ness and Kleia have always been too fond of each other, and it was one of the worst kept secrets of the squadron when that fondness spilled over into intimacy last spring. The relationship ended with the summer storms, but the girls are no less friendly now than they were beforehand. If anything, they’ve grown closer.

“What do you think, Lincoln?” Ness calls ahead.

Lincoln pauses, turns to face the three of them. He casts a critical glance over each Elias and Kleia. Then he smirks, and keeps walking.

“I’d pay to see an army rally behind Elias as they would Kleia,” he throws over his shoulder, and the girls break out into tandem fits of giggles, racing to catch up and leaving a stunned, sputtering Elias in their wake.

<< [ —— ] >>

It is not a star.

“I’m not sure what I expected,” Ness admits, frowning down from her perch in the trees. “I thought it would be a rock, maybe.”

“Stars are made of gas, like balls of fire,” Kleia corrects, absently, her hands digging into the bark of her supporting branch. She cannot rip her eyes from it, cannot blink.

( _Not a star, not a star, not a star._

Her heart would be beating itself out of her chest  
if it hadn’t already been lodged in her throat since they arrived.)

“So what are they, then?” Elias mutters from another tree a little ways away, his voice low but carrying, far enough in the air that he isn’t worried of being overheard. “Star people? Sky people?”

“ _Veida_?” Ness’s hand curls into a fist in the hem of Kleia’s vest. _Invaders._

“No,” Lincoln says firmly.

Kleia can feel his eyes on her like a brand from his spot on a branch below them, but she will not look at him.

(She can’t, she _can’t_.)

“They’re only _youngon_ ,” says Elias, and that is what none of them can understand.

_If these are the children, where are the adults?_

(Like all animals in the forest,  
the young are nothing to fear.

It is the parents,  
always,  
that are the most dangerous.)

Because the star is not a star, but a giant metal box as tall as the longhouse in TonDC is long, cobbled together from other smaller metal boxes. It is dirty and banged up, but where the forest around the thing still smokes from the fire that surrounded it as it fell to the ground, the box itself only looks mildly charred. It is still sturdy, standing proud, if a little crooked, in the center of the clearing it had carved out of the trees. The enormous tarp—draped over the top of it and dragging along the ground— _is_ worse for wear, torn from the branches and caked in mud and ash.

Though the box itself is strange, it is not the curious part.

It is teeming with _children_.

Their ages vary too much to possibly be a training battalion, from girls who would still struggle to hold a full-sized sword, no more than twelve summers, to boys who would be graduating from training in Polis, seventeen or eighteen at best.

Then there is the dark-haired man with the booming voice, clearly older than the rest. He is dressed differently than the others too. All the children have frayed, patchwork jackets and thin trousers, but he wears a strange black vest across his chest, and his wrist is missing the metal bracelets that all the others seem to have.

There doesn’t appear to be any order or hierarchy, either. The children have sprawled out across the forest floor, some climbing trees with wild laughter, others pairing off to kiss and fondle each other in the grass. Mostly, though, they sit in little knots, chatting excitedly and looking around the trees with open wonder. None of them are following any orders, but no one seems to be giving any, either.

It is hard to tell, with so many voices rising together, but they are speaking what can only be English.

Kleia reaches into her pocket to pull out her sketchbook. At the brush of Lincoln’s hand along her calf, she digs out her charcoal and breaks the stick in two, handing him a piece so they can both get to work.

Kleia takes a deep breath, lets herself exhale until her lungs are empty and her hands are steady, and begins to draw.

In broad, thick strokes, she sketches the ship. This is what it has to be—it’s a large vessel that carries dozens of people from one island to the next. It is a bizarre one, to be sure; some ships still remain from the time before the bombs and they are metal, too, but they were built for travel over the oceans, not through the sky.

(In the back of her mind,  
a single word tumbles  
around  
and around  
like a landslide:

_exodus_.)

The four of them fall into silence. Elias keeps track of those moving in and out of the skyship. Ness takes stock of the children, determines those who would stand up to battle and those would fall quickly.

They have no desire to go to war with these kids, and take no pleasure in the prospect of a slaughter. But, as close as this camp is to the Mountain, it is still Trigedakru lands. These fallen sky people are trespassers, first and foremost. Can they be reasoned with, that is the true question.

The loud man is talking with a group of boys, and all at once, they break out of their little cluster. Some head into the ship while the rest get to work scaling the sides of the thing, tugging at the tarp to work it free from the poles and branches it’s caught on.

The loud man then saunters over to the largest group of kids, gets their attention with a sharp _hey!_

In the sun, he looks younger. His face is dotted with freckles, and Kleia can see the sheen of whatever oil he’d used to slick back his thick, dark hair. He’s definitely older than her and Ness, but possibly not as old as Lincoln or Elias. His shoulders are tense and there are angry lines around his mouth, but when he speaks, he is not disparaging. She can’t make out what he’s saying, just catches the movements of his mouth and the quirk of his brow. Before she really knows what she’s doing, Kleia is sliding out on her branch, ignoring Ness’s panicked hiss.

Ness is not worried about the branch not holding under Kleia’s weight but of exposure. Yet Kleia inches herself out as far as she can, straddling the branch and balancing her sketchbook against a knot in the wood.

(He’s speaking,  
he’s speaking and it’s _English_  
and she needs to _hear_ him, _blast it_.)

(If only her heart was not thundering  
so loudly in her chest,  
if only the ringing in her ears  
didn’t drown out the voice in her head screaming,  
_these are not your people_.)

Her charcoal falls to the page, and in quick, even strokes, she outlines his face, the sweep of his jaw and the jut of his brow, the bow of his mouth. He is beautiful, captivating like a wolf on the hunt, but so are all dangerous things.

“Look,” he’s saying, raising his voice to be heard over the chatter, “we don’t know how long it’s going to take the Prince and his crew to find their old bunker food. If you want to eat before then, we’re going to have to send out groups to look for food, and we’re going to have to do it before it gets dark. We’re also going to need people who know what shit we’re not supposed to eat and what’s safe, so was anybody good at Earth Skills before they were locked up?”

A few kids raise their hands in response. He drums up some more volunteers to stand as well, and they break off with a few of his boys who have returned from inside the box, armed with short knives and scraps of the tarp tied into bags.

He takes a seat at the edge of the circle, and a girl with long, thick braids asks, her voice laced with snark, “Who died and made you Chancellor?”

“Do you want to go off in the forest and look for food? Do you know which plants are safe to eat and which will kill you?” He rounds on her with a glare, and she grumbles, but shakes her head. “Then stop complaining.”

And then the unthinkable happens.

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He reaches under the hem of his shirt,  
and pulls out a _gun_.

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( _No—_

_metal and fire and tears and_ screaming _,  
wails ricocheting off walls as bodies fall—_

_and the smoke, thick and sweet,_  
_snaking through the air and filling her lungs,  
and laughter, heady and manic and_ sad—

_figures rising from the smoke,_  
_imperial troops on the march,  
reaching out with their claws for_ her— 

_sleep, she wants to sleep but she_ doesn’t _,_  
_she wants to run but her legs cannot move,  
wants to scream but she cannot_ breathe—

_everything is going black at the edges,  
and she falls._ )

Kleia cannot jerk back fast enough.

She collides with Ness, nearly sending them careening to the ground, but Lincoln has a hand on both of their jackets, and it’s enough to keep them in the tree.

On the ground, the self-proclaimed Chancellor is only cleaning it—the _gun_ —popping out the cartridge and wiping it down.

But the damage is done.

“ _Do you see it?_ ” Ness growls in her ear, and Kleia can only dip her chin in a nod. Lincoln presses his fist hard against her side.

( _Not again, not again, not again._ )

Elias makes his way to them, settling into a fork just above their heads. “What do you want us to do, Kleia?” His voice is hard, unyielding.

It takes her a long moment to remember how to breathe.

“As we’re told,” she says at length, her voice clear despite the lingering taste of ash on her tongue. “We observe until we are relieved.”

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Lincoln was right, after all.

The Mountain will wake again, if it hasn’t already.

The Mountain Men will come,  
and the forest will burn.

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( _Please, Anya, come soon._ )  


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[[ _tbc._ ]]

<< [ —— ] >>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I’m not sure whether to classify it as a panic attack or more of a violently visceral flashback, but the warning still stands.
> 
> I’m happy with the shorter, single-scene/POV chapters for now, but that’ll change soon enough, if that’s not your thing. (The good news is, when the chapters are shorter, I can post them in batches and still keep the plot moving.)
> 
> Now, I know not everybody is a fan of OC’s, but at least in this case, it’s not my intention to outshine the canon characters with mine. I’m merely doing my best to fill out this universe that the show writers have given to us. And, ya know, I want to give Clarke friends who love her and tease her even though they aren’t our favorite delinquents. (Also Clarke needs more positive relationship experiences, dammit.)
> 
> Next time, we’ll meet Octavia and her boys on the road to Mount Weather. (I don't have an ETA yet, but it shouldn't be too far off.)
> 
>  
> 
> _Posted 7/19/15_

**Author's Note:**

> Drop me a line on tumblr at my [personal](http://lackingstealth.tumblr.com/) blog, or at my [writing](http://skyboxkids.tumblr.com/) blog.


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